Finishing Touches » (Bargain)

In New York Times bestselling author Hester Browne's delightful new novel, a fading English finishing school is about to get a twenty-first-century makeover. Out with white ...

Lisa Hanson O'Hara - Library Journal

Betsy Cooper Phillimore has turned into a very well-finished lady, considering that she had been abandoned as a baby. Luckily, her birth mother had the foresight to leave her on the doorstep of the Phillimore Academy, one of London's last finishing schools, where she grew up learning good manners along with her ABCs. Betsy didn't actually attend the finishing school, instead taking a math degree at university and eventually ending up in Edinburgh running a high-end shoe store. However, owing to some misunderstanding, her adoptive family believes that Betsy is a successful management consultant and asks her to help get the now faltering academy back on the right financial track. Betsy can hardly say no, and there is the added incentive that she might discover her real mother's identity if she is given access to the academy's old records. Being in London also means that she will see more of Jamie, her best friend's brother and her long-time crush, and Mark, the academy's slightly bookish but handsome bursar. Browne (The Little Lady Agency) has written another entertaining and highly enjoyable novel that will appeal to fans of Bridget Jones's Diary and other British chick lit.